Adriamycin and daunomycin derivatives wherein the amino hydrogens in the sugar moiety are replaced by methyl groups to provide a N,N-dimethyl tertiary amine moiety are described in the following references:
1. G. Zbinden, M. Pfister and CH. Holderegger, Cardiotoxicity of N,N-Dimethyladriamycin (NSC-261 045) in Rats, Toxicology Letters, 1(1978), pp 267-274, and
2. David W. henry, George Tong, Allan N. Fujiwara, William W. Lee, Methylated Analogs of Daunomycin and Adriamycin, American Chemical Society, Abstract of Papers, 172nd ACS Meeting, San Francisco, California, Aug. 29-Sept. 3, 1976.
The compounds of the present invention differ from those of the prior art in that they do not represent alkyl amine derivatives of adriamycin and daunomycin. Instead, they are adiramycin or daunomycin derivatives wherein the amino nitrogen atom of the sugar moiety forms a part of a piperidino ring which resembles, in some measure, a second sugar ring in the molecule.